Today, an artist’s path, a path of creation, a path towards the other with Christian Guémy, alias C215. Urban artist, he began in 2005 to handle stencil in the streets. He represents portraits of homeless people, refugees, children. Portraits with moving expressions. The urban artist, internationally known, exhibits at the National Assembly until February 25th.
Produced voluntarily, the exhibition ” Slava Ukrainian » brings together photo prints and original works retracing the stays of C215 in Ukraine. We met him in his studio in Vitry-sur-Seine where he has lived and worked since 2006.
As a child, I thought the street that led me to school was deadly sad and I imagined drawings.
Christian Guémy, alias C215, portrait painter and stencil artist, has been a painter approved by the French Army since 2022.
“ Since Louis XIV, there has been a corps of painters accompanying the army: the painters of battles. Since 1913, in France, they have become the painters of the Army. There were some changes between the Secretariat of Fine Arts and the Ministry of Defence, but today it is an associative body of painters, which does not have military status, but which is approved by the Ministry. armies. They receive missions as civilians, but with an honorary rank to accompany the land forces in their regiments, their external operations and report on the reality of the army and participate in its influence. It is a completely free engagement: each artist tends to reflect his work as well as the army. The idea for me is to paint on walls in situations where the French army is protecting civilians. »
Christian Guémy was born in Bondy in a modest environment. He studied art history. As an urban artist, the portrait is his favorite subject, he revisits it with stencils. C215 is regularly inspired by personalities and anonymous people who make history. In Ukraine, he placed his stencils in the ruins in order to raise public awareness of the plight of refugees, among others.
“It was very important to be accredited, not to have an autocratic approach like ‘something dramatic is happening there, I’m going to go do some works’, because that’s obscene. There was a necessary justification, it was at a time when there was a huge influx of refugees. There were very few images of the war and many images of the influx of refugees. It was to encourage people to welcome them. I wouldn’t have gone if the Ukrainian government hadn’t invited me as well. On site, I always seek the consent of the locals, their expertise, I try to understand in order to adapt, gradually, what I had to do. Then, in relation to places which could be places of suffering in which people had lived, which had been bombed, places which carried too heavy a burden in terms of mortality, for example, in a building which was bombed, evacuated in time, I can do a kind of little still life, by collecting objects, by painting something on the wall which evokes the life before, rather than showing the thing. And always, out of anticipation and out of respect for the civilians who suffered there and for the Ukrainians, I also wanted the works I created to be in low visibility, in situ. Discreet works and when they weren’t, I tried to make works that disappeared by painting them on supports that had been destroyed and that were going to be quickly restored, rebuilt, rebuilt. It was the idea of a disappearance of my work at the moment when life was going to take back its rights. »
Christian Guémy always has the curiosity to meet others. ” We are in a very egotistical culture… I come from an extremely popular environment and I grew up in an extremely modest environment, particularly in terms of culture. I think the merit, yes, we have; each of us has merit, obviously because we make choices, we have merit. But I think that in life what is above all wonderful is to have the curiosity to meet others, and finally to have a lot of doors opened. If I hadn’t met a whole bunch of wonderful people in my life who initiated me, trusted me, even if sometimes I could disappoint. Nobody is perfect. I’m happy to have a job that opens my eyes, opens doors for me and makes me meet people who are very different from those who raised me, from those I’ve known. I still have the appetite to meet people. »
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